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		<header>
			<h1>Vivian</h1>
			<p>Day 01046: <time>Tuesday, 2018 January 16</time></p>
		</header>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I can&apos;t remember the plot of the dream or most of the events, but near the end, a girl I know and I had just left a strange store with some other girl.
		She was definitely a girl and everyone recognised her as such, but based on build and voice, she was a transwoman who&apos;d chosen not to go through hormone therapy whatsoever.
		She was comfortable being herself without bodily alterations.
		However, her make-up was on really thick to the point that her face was white; not just pale, but actually whiter than most paper.
		I wouldn&apos;t be too surprised if her make-up represented my opinion on make-up in general.
		Without exception, I think people look better without the stuff.
		It&apos;s actually one of the things that makes me find women unattractive, which leads me to believe my distaste for make-up is due to my mixed brain.
		I&apos;m man enough to not want make-up on myself, but I&apos;m woman enough not to want make-up on a partner.
	</p>
	<p>
		As we left, our newly-met party member mentioned that the store we left, of which she was one of the owners and people running it, opened up pretty much whenever one of them got there.
		There were no set hours, and there were about five people that owned and helped run the place.
		I remember wondering how anyone was supposed to know when they could stop by to buy anything.
	</p>
	<p>
		After leaving, we never entered any sort of building, but somehow, we ended up in some sort of long hall.
		I can&apos;t even remember what the hall looked like, but a telephone attached to the wall rang.
		While the others kept walking, I stopped to quickly answer it.
		&quot;Yes?&quot;, I asked.
		There was no response for a couple seconds, then I heard my own ostensibly-recorded voice speak back to me.
		&quot;Yes?&quot;
		It was garbled a bit by the telephone line, but it was definitely me and definitely said exactly as I&apos;d just said it.
		That weirded me out, so I hung up the telephone really quickly and ran slightly to catch up with the other girls.
		But then the dream skipped like a scratched record.
		I was back on the telephone hearing my own voice played back to me.
		&quot;Yes?&quot;
		Um, no.
		This was not going to keep happening.
		At this point, I pieced together that it was a dream, and I was not going to sit and get creeped out like this.
		I forced myself to wake up, thinking it was my only way to avoid a third iteration of the tiny loop.
	</p>
	<p>
		As a side note, I should really force myself to wake up whenever I realise I&apos;m dreaming.
		If you don&apos;t wake mid-dream, you don&apos;t remember any part of your dream.
		I&apos;m not sure if I do that though; after all, if I don&apos;t wake up, intentionally or not, I can&apos;t remember the dream even happened.
		Even on a &quot;dreamless&quot; night, if you&apos;ve had enough sleep, you&apos;ve probably had about six to eight dreams; they&apos;re not a once-a-night occurrence like many people think they are.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="jobs">
	<h2>Job hunt</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve decided not to look into apparent working conditions before applying at places.
		Mostly, I&apos;d like some practice interviewing.
		Ruling places out before the interviews will limit how much practice I get.
		Once I&apos;m offered a position, I can focus solely on that company and take a good look at how things appear to be run, at least from the outside.
		It&apos;ll also save me a lot of time looking into the conditions of positions I won&apos;t end up chosen for anyway.
	</p>
	<p>
		I still went out as planned, my mission was just a little different.
		Instead of checking out places and employees, I just looked into what businesses are where and jotted down company names to later search for on the Web to find application forms or résumé-submission procedures.
		I decided to pay a visit to the Gateway Mall, as there&apos;re so many businesses in one place to apply at.
		I made a list of most of them, and will apply when time allows.
	</p>
	<p>
		While I was there, I located the Food Industries Credit Union.
		I&apos;ve seen people come through the drive-through lane at work with debit cards from there, but I&apos;ve never actually seen the place.
		I&apos;ve been curious as to what that actually is.
		Once I saw the place, a question arose to my mind: what are the requirements of membership?
		I work as a low-level fast food grunt.
		Not that I&apos;d want a membership, is that enough to make me eligible for one?
		It turns out I&apos;m eligible, but not because I work in the food industry.
		There are three requirements for membership.
		You&apos;ve got to live in Lane County, you&apos;ve got to pass their credit check, and you&apos;ve got to put down a ten-dollar deposit.
		Well, I guess I only <strong>*assume*</strong> I&apos;m eligible.
		I&apos;d like to think I can pass their credit check, but there might be some issue because I don&apos;t have enough of a credit history or something.
		I actually got declined for a credit card once for not having enough credit history, though now, I&apos;m glad I don&apos;t have that particular card anyway.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="laptop">
	<h2>Getting a new laptop</h2>
	<p>
		I think I&apos;ll spend the day tomorrow getting a new laptop from the recycling centre.
		<a href="/en/domains/newdawn.local.xhtml"><code>newdawn</code></a> and <a href="/en/domains/morgan.local.xhtml"><code>morgan</code></a> both died on me unexpectedly in the middle of terms.
		It&apos;d be nice if I had a backup in case <a href="/en/domains/bailey.local.xhtml"><code>bailey</code></a> dies unexpectedly too.
		That pretty much means tomorrow is not likely to be an overly-productive day, but while I&apos;ll lose this one day, it&apos;ll prevent me from losing multiple days during a period I have no time to spare.
		It&apos;s better I do this now and not later.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Vivian">
	<h2>Vivian</h2>
	<p>
		My sister Vivian, previously known by a different name in these journal pages, has asked that I now redact her legal name and replace it with the name &quot;Vivian&quot;.
		She&apos;s also asked that I remove instances of the name of her organisation.
		Both have been completed.
		Also as per her request, mentions of her after today will be kept to a minimum.
		I asked about if vague mentions are okay, and she kind of said they were, but doesn&apos;t seem too keen on the idea.
		If at all possible, today will be my last mention of her, though figuring out how to convey ideas not about her, but tangent to her, will certainly prove difficult.
		We&apos;ll see how I handle it as things come up.
		Or rather, <strong>*I&apos;ll*</strong> see.
		If everything goes perfectly, <strong>*you*</strong> won&apos;t.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="meta">
	<h2>Website maintenance</h2>
	<p>
		The website cleanup continues, with most of my work on it today consisting of old journal pages from the three-month period in which I&apos;d started dividing up my journal content into sections using section headers, but hadn&apos;t yet started using proper <code>&lt;section/&gt;</code> elements yet.
		For the most part, I just went about the work without really reading the content of the pages, but a few titles caught my attention and I read a bit.
		I&apos;m reminded of how terrible life used to be, only slightly longer than a year ago.
		And now, life is almost fantastic.
		Almost.
		I mean, the world is still a terrible mess, but I&apos;m actually happy now.
		I&apos;m still not in the best place ever, but I&apos;m no longer in an emotionally toxic home.
		One particular passage really brought back memories:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="/en/weblog/2016/11-November/21.xhtml#apartment">
		<p>
			For the record, living on my own will be a pain.
			I&apos;m aware of that.
			However, I&apos;m so close to breaking.
			My mind, my spirit ...
			I don&apos;t know how much longer I can stand to be here.
			Even if I fail at first, living on my own will give me a chance to break free of the chains that bind me here; a chance to not be constantly ridiculed for actually caring, for putting the good of the world above the good of the few.
			I&apos;ll be free to be me, free to stretch my arms and explore that it means to <strong>*be*</strong> me, without judgment, without fear of losing my home simply because I &quot;misspoke&quot;, refused to eat corpses, or cut my hair differently.
			I just want ... to be what I really am, not what my mother wishes that I was.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		For the record though, living on my own is not a pain; it&apos;s been awesome!
		Sure, it was a little rough in the beginning before I got some basic essentials brought in.
		And the growing pains of coming into myself drove me to the brink.
		But with those out of the way, this has been the best period of my life to date.
	</p>
	<p>
		I also used to have to wash my laundry by hand in the bathtub ... can you even imagine having to do that every few days?
		Man, that really took a lot out of me.
		It wasn&apos;t the worst I was dealing with, but on top of everything that wore me out emotionally, I was worn out physically by this and the apartment-hunting.
	</p>
	<p>
		I needed to put the maintenance on the back burner though to take care of a more-urgent matter: redaction.
		While redacting for Vivian, I noticed several other bad memories.
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="/en/weblog/2016/06-June/28.xhtml">
		<p>
			On the way to Springfield, our mother seemed quite surprised that Cyrus wasn&apos;t [his] usual chipper self.
			Does our mother not understand that other people have feelings?
			Our mother thoroughly railed on us both yesterday, why would either of us be chipper?
			I&apos;ve learned to keep my emotions under wraps around our mother, but for Cyrus, it&apos;s all out there on [his] sleeve.
			Cyrus seemed lifeless and emotionally drained.
			In any sane world, why would Cyrus be any other way, given the circumstances?
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote cite="/en/weblog/2016/06-June/30.xhtml">
		<p>
			Later in the day, my mother commented that [she doesn&apos;t] know how I can survive as a vegan.
			[She likes] to say that every once in a while.
			I replied that I survive barely, so [she] continued that vegetables don&apos;t really provide much energy.
			I dropped it on [her] that I indeed don&apos;t have energy because [she doesn&apos;t] want me to cook.
			Without a decent meal, I indeed don&apos;t feel well.
			I&apos;ve been drained of energy for quite a while now.
			Though I didn&apos;t say it, it&apos;s not even like [she cares] what shape I&apos;m in.
			[She is] put off by the smell of my cooking, and as a result, I don&apos;t get to even get decent nutrition.
			How can you claim to love someone while choosing their constant lethargia over you having to smell food that you don&apos;t personally find appetizing?
			Either my mother&apos;s sense of smell is off the charts (which [she]&apos;ll argue isn&apos;t true) or [she has] zero concern for my well-being.
			I suppose I already know that, but it hurts to think about.
			My mother loves the <strong>*idea*</strong> of [her] children, but not [her] children themselves.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote cite="/en/weblog/2016/07-July/02.xhtml">
		<p>
			My mother went to bed, and when I said I&apos;d stay up and continue lifting boxes, my mother claimed that while I may be stronger, [she is] tougher; I don&apos;t need to try to prove otherwise.
			My mother isn&apos;t even tough enough to try out new software, new music, or a new diet; I doubt whether [she&apos;s] somehow tougher than me.
			However, that wasn&apos;t at all the point.
			I explained that it had nothing to do with toughness, it had to do with not wanting to be a burden; I didn&apos;t want to be the one that slowed our mother down.
			My mother responded that I&apos;m not a burden.
			That&apos;s not what [she] always [tells] me though whenever anything comes up.
			[She] always [tries] to shift blame onto me, even when it&apos;s not my responsibility to pick up [her] slack.
			You can&apos;t play both sides like that; it causes both both support and disdain to be felt as piercingly negative.
			In fact, [her] positive comments might hurt worse than [her] insults.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote cite="/en/weblog/2016/07-July/22.xhtml">
		<p>
			I confronted Cyrus again about [his] still [staying over] with our father.
			Personally, I don&apos;t mind if Cyrus has a relationship with our father, but Cyrus is going to be hit with the backlash from not keeping [his] word to our mother.
			Cyrus claimed that [he] thought that mother had said that [he] could stay.
			Our mother would never say that though.
			[She] worked very hard to berate Cyrus and tear [him] down in order to coerce [him] into giving up [his] time with our father, so [she&apos;s] not going to suddenly say that Cyrus can stay over at our father&apos;s place and hang out some more.
			I walked Cyrus through the situation one more time.
			I was hoping that [he]&apos;d understand this time, but it turned out that it didn&apos;t matter anyway.
			Our mother confronted Cyrus later in the day about the issue, and has now told Cyrus that [she is] done with [him].
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		Not all of those negative emotions were directed at me, but there&apos;s a common theme, clearly.
		Our mother is one toxic individual.
		Rehashing these memories put me in a bit of a sour mood.
		It&apos;s like part of her has leached out into my journal, forever toxifying it.
		I guess, in a way, it has.
		She poured all of that into me, and rather than fully succumb to it, I poured as much of it as I could out of me and into the journal.
		It somewhat immortalised it, but it may have prevented its effect on me from becoming bad enough that I finally offed myself.
		I mean, there were many times I just wanted to die, but I didn&apos;t take it that far, likely because I still had an outlet.
		Not that it really matters, I guess; I still have to die one day and I&apos;m only postponing the inevitable by not having died already.
		Anyway, the sooner I finish this little cleaning task, the sooner I can put the past back in the archives and come back to the present.
	</p>
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